Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
There's no coercion here. I'm not saying that Bush should threaten Novak with anything. Nor is Atticus. His point about the bully pulpit is that the President's office gives him moral and persuasive authority that he could use here, if he really wanted the culprits to be exposed.
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43's good points are his Extreme Moral Clarity and his folksy ability to tell right from wrong, without getting bogged down by legal niceties. This is a good thing, but it leaves 43 vulnerable whenever he decides it's important to stand on those niceties. We liberals tend to notice when he goes off the "right is right and wrong is wrong" script. Usually he makes Donald "What's charged here is not technically torture, it's abuse" Rumsfeld or Scott "The President has addressed this repeatedly, and you know his position on that" McClellan do it.
The President could say, "I urge Mr. Novak to come forward with any information about this crime, which we all deplore, that he might have." There's no infringement of the First Amendment there. Jeez, you didn't seem too up-in-arms over the guys getting tossed from public property for wearing t-shirts.
